Her Majesty's Wizard #1 (7 page)

   Stegoman sighed heavily and resumed his tale. "For five hundred years peace held; no man came against us, till Hardishane's Empire had dissolved. By then, we'd grown accustomed to our own army ordering, even though we lived in peace. It had proved too useful; we had built our dragon city and we'd done away with blood feuds. More dragons lived than e'er before, and the living was richer, safer. Then, when the Empire fell, the first men's army marched into our land."

   "You chased them home, of course."

   "Certes. But ever and anon, they try again-though it takes them near an hundred years to screw their daring up again."

   "And you don't have any trouble with men in the intervals?"

   "None dare attack-save vile hatchling hunters, seeking blood to sell to sorcerers." Stegoman shut his jaws with a snap, holding Matt with a fixed and glittering eye.

   Matt swallowed. He thought he'd gotten Stegoman off that topic.

   The dragon stretched and came to his feet with a rattling clatter. "Which brings to mind thyself. Art thou a hunter, a sorcerer-or both?"

   "Neither," Matt said quickly. "I'm a wizard." He heard his own words and felt like a fool.

   But Stegoman looked at him sidewise and slowly nodded. "Methinks there is some credit in that claim."

   Matt heaved a sigh of relief that hollowed his backbone. "What convinced you? My native goodness glimmering through?"

   "Nay, thine ignorance. Since thou knowest so little, thou hast only newly discovered thy Power and art still a wizard. Yet thou'lt surely find temptation yet! Be assured-I trust men to be treacherous."

   "Comforting thought, I'm sure," Matt mused. "It was just research, you see-I was trying to find out if I really could work a spell, and the first thing I thought of conjuring up turned out to be you."

   "And thus we are acquainted," Steogman said drily. "Tell me, whence comest thou, from what benighted land, that thou couldst know so little of our dragon lore?"

   Matt started to give an honest answer, then caught himself. "Uh, I don't think you're going to believe this."

   "Art thou so rare?" Stegoman demanded. "Tell thy tale; if there be truth in it, be sure that I've heard stranger."

   "Okay, you asked for it." Matt took a deep breath. "I'm from out of this world. Not just this land-this world. Totally. I'm not even from this universe."

   Stegoman lowered his snout onto his foreclaws, watching Matt with glittering eyes. "So thou art from another universe and world? How came this?"

   "I couldn't rightly say," Matt admitted. "One minute I was reading an old scrap of parchment in my neighborhood coffee shop and the next I was standing in a street in downtown Bordestang."

   "No doubt some magus, here wished thy presence."

   "You think so, too?" Matt leaped at it. "That's the only explanation I can think of. But who'd want me here? I scarcely know a soul."

   "What soul knows thee? That's more in question." The dragon's tail-tip twitched. "Malingo, perchance-the King's vile sorcerer. Couldst thou serve him in any way?" He said it casually, but he was eyeing Matt as if Matt were a marshmallow ready for toasting.

   "Well, no," Matt said carefully. "That is, I suppose I could be useful to him-but I don't think I'd want to be."

   "Wherefore not? Malingo rides the wave's crest now; his tide still rises, carrying him up to glory. Thou couldst rise, too, to wealth and power."

   "And the damnation of my soul." When in Rome, speak Latin. If they wanted to deal in medieval concepts, Matt pretty much had to, too. "Malingo strikes me as the kind of boss I couldn't trust. He might decide to put me down-six feet deep. Besides, I met the man already; he did some rather unpleasant things to me."

   Stegoman frowned. "Thou dost not show it. Why did he mend the things he'd done to thee?"

   "Oh, he didn't. But I couldn't walk around all day without my giblets, could I?"

   Stegoman was very still suddenly, and Matt wondered, with a touch of panic, if he'd said the wrong thing. Then the dragon spoke and he almost sounded respectful. "Thou hast countered spells Malingo cast on thee?"

   "Well, sure! I have this quirky thing about living-it's a nice pastime."

   "Assuredly, it is," the dragon breathed. "Thou art, then, no weakling as a wizard, art thou?"

   "Oh, now, wait a minute? Don't go making me out to be what I'm not! I'm sure Malingo wasn't really trying."

   "Even so: thou dost live, and that doth show power. Too much, he should have made a servant of thee, or a corpse."

   It was one of those very unfortunate situations where the only thing Matt could say that wouldn't get him into trouble was the truth-and even that was a little uncertain. He braced himself for the worst. "Well, I didn't exactly tell him no. I said I needed time to think it over."

   "And hast thou thought?"

   Matt took a deep breath. "Pretty much. I still need a few more facts."

   "Such as?" there was a dangerous rumble under Stegoman's words.

   Matt tried to ignore it. "Well, Malingo is rotten, and Astaulf's his patsy. But who's on the other side? And are they any better?"

   The silence stretched out so long that Stegoman's glowing eyes seemed to be permanently burning themselves into Matt's retinas. At last the dragon spoke.

   "Thou must, indeed, be new-come to this land, if thou knowest naught of those Astaulf opposes."

   "Right. But I happened to be there when Malingo and Astaulf squared off, and--"

   "Oh, did they?" Stegoman's eyes glinted. "A point of interest, I assure thee. And what didst thou glean from this confrontation?"

   Matt took a deep breath and launched himself. "That Astaulf usurped the throne about six months ago, with Malingo's help. And the population isn't all that happy about it, or Astaulf wouldn't still have soldiers in the streets. And there's a bunch of loyalist barons fighting what amounts to a guerilla action, trying to bring Astaulf and Malingo down."

   Stegoman nodded. "Thou hast caught the nubbin of it squarely. But who seek these loyal barons to place upon the throne?"

   "Ah, there's the rub in the nubbin," Matt said with regret. "I didn't hear a word about the other side. Who are -- I mean, were they?"

   "Thou hadst it more aright with 'are,"'' the dragon mused, "but as for 'were,' 'twas the fourth King Kaprin. His wizard, full of years, had died; and ere he could seek out another, Malingo leaped, with Astaulf and his soldiers, upon this town of Bordestang. The fight was brief but bloody, and King Kaprin died."

   "How about `are'? That's the loyalist barons, I take it. Who do they have with them? A powerful wizard? If they do, he might be the one who pulled me here."

   "Throe estimates are accurate." Stegoman eyed him warily. "Malingo cannot progress against the barons, nor can they gain an ell of land toward Bordestang. Thou riddlest well from tiny rhymes."

   Matt almost blushed. "So the situation isn't a total conquest, it's a precarious balance. Astaulf and Malingo have the throne, but the barons have the people and a sizable chunk of the land. And I'd guess they're pretty evenly matched. So if you don't want that balance, introduce a random factor-me-to upset the apple cart. "

   "Aye," the dragon rumbled suspiciously, "but who would wish that most?"

   "The barons," Matt said promptly. "Malingo has the upper hand, right now. For the barons, anything that breaks the stalemate is welcome,. provided it doesn't come from Malingo."

   "A fascinating theory." Stegoman nodded. "But it trips and stumbles on one point: the barons have no wizard."

   "None?" Matt's eyebrows shot up.

   Stegoman shrugged impatiently. "Oh, they have a few of minor power-holy men, monastery abbots and the like. But no great wizard."

   "Hmm." Matt bit his lip. "You sure?"

   "I am. Their strongest asset is the princess, and she's imprisoned."

   "Princess?" Matt's head snapped up. "What princess?"

   Stegoman sighed. "I forget how newly thou art come. Still, 'tis strange thou hast not heard of her."

   "I've been a little busy. Who is she?"

   "King Kaprin's daughter. Rightful heir to Merovence's crown."

   "I'm surprised she's still alive."

   "Be not. She is a lass of beauty. And Astaulf bums to have her."

   "What's stopping him?"

   "Malingo. He plans further ahead than Astaulf. To marry her would give the usurper legitimacy-but only if she comes unsullied to him, so that the marriage may be duly solemnized. And she'll not wed him."

   "I don't blame her. And come to think of it, I did hear Astaulf say something about an idiot girl in the dungeons. I gather he's getting impatient."

   "Quite," Stegoman said grimly. "Six months agone he moved her to the dungeons with the rats. Rumor says he speaks now of torture. But she will have none of his plan."

   Matt nodded approval. "A girl with guts." He turned away, stroking his chin. "A real, live princess in durance vile!"

   Stegoman regarded him with jaundiced eyes. "Thou hast a scheme in mind, man?"

   "Matt," Matt said absently. "We ought to be on a first-name basis by now."

   "Matt," the dragon conceded. "Thy scheme?"

   Matt shrugged. "It's not really a scheme. I'm just wondering which is better-to wait here for Malingo to come and pull the plug on me, or to go looking for trouble when I have a good excuse."

   Stegoman was quiet for a moment, chewing that one over. Then he sighed and rattled his spinal plates. "Thou hast the right of it, I fear; there's nothing to be looked for here. But how dost thou mean to leave this cell?"

   "By going from bad to verse. Poetry got me into this fix; poetry should get me out."

   He was silent, thinking for a moment. The dragon eyed him warily.

   Then Matt began to recite:

   "There sits a prisoner in a cell of stone, Whose eyes should weep, for she's alone. Yet ill-becoming royalty are tears; And she's a queen, though slight of years."

   He took a breath to go on to the second verse-just in time, for the dragon to blast out, "Hold!"

   Matt leaped aside from the gout of flame, deciding Stegoman was a bit perturbed. "Yeek! Uh-was it something I said?"

   "Nay, what thou wast about to say." Stegoman's eyes glowed in the candlelight. "Thou wast about to leave this cell!"

   "Well, sure. I mean, we talked it over, didn't we? And decided-"

   "That challenging blind fate would better suit thy taste than awaiting certain doom within this chamber. Aye, 'tis so! Yet didst thou think that dragons are more partial to such cramped and noisome quarters than are men?"

   "Oh." Matt bit his cheek in consternation. "Sorry. I was in a little bit of a rush, wasn't I?"

   "Aye, and thou wast near to making waste-of thee."

   "I see your point." Matt eyed the dragon's cocked and loaded snout. "Well, suppose I get you out of here first? Any particular place you'd like to be?"

   "Anywhere, so it be wide and free and open."

   "The plains, then." Matt rolled up his sleeves. "How about next to a stream?"

   "Stream, flood, or bog, I care not one whit! Only put me there!"

   Matt nodded and began,

   "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine. And there you shall rest your enamell'd skin. Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in."

   Air imploded with a padded thud, and the cell was empty, except for Matt and the giant candle, flame streaming in the wind. He drew a long, shaky breath; he'd felt forces gathering around him again and was more certain than ever that they had been molding themselves to his words, somehow.

   Idly, he wondered why there should be weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in, right after the line about enameled skin. It hadn't made that much more sense in the original, really-but Shakespeare had put it in, so who was he to turn it down?

   Back to the matter of the moment-how had that prisoner verse gone again?

   "There sits a prisoner in a cell of stone Whose eyes should weep, for she's alone."

   He felt it beginning again-a gathering of forces, like static electricity around a lightning rod, before the faint spark flew.

   "Yet ill-becoming royalty are tears; And she's a queen, though slight of years."

   The feeling was much stronger now, with something slightly ominous about it. He wondered, fleetingly, what would happen if he built up a field as strong as this, then couldn't think of an imperative, a directing phrase, a route for the magic field's discharge.

   Come to think of it, what was he going to use for an imperative to this verse? Umm.

   "Away, away, through walls I'll fly to her, And there about our fates we shall confer!"

   A silent, invisible explosion blasted him; the floor seemed to slide sideways beneath his feet, and a huge hand squeezed him, then let him go. He looked up, panting, amazed to find himself dripping with sweat, and saw the princess.